GLA Group Advertising

Susan Hall: How much money has the GLA group spent on advertising each year since May 2016 and how much has been allocated for future advertising budgets?

The Mayor: The GLA has a responsibility to keep Londoners informed and engaged in our work, including to inform them of services that are available to them and policies that may impact them. Advertising plays an important part in this as it allows us to reach Londoners, particularly hard to reach communities in London.
Since 2008, the GLA has worked with Wavemaker (previously MEC) as our appointed media planning and buying agency. All our significant marketing and communications spend has been via Wavemaker.
The GLA’s advertising spend by financial year can been found in www.london.gov.uk/questions/2019/17429.
At this time, we cannot attribute an accurate figure for “future advertising budgets”. As always, we will work strategically with our media buying agency to decide what will be the most impactful way to reach our audiences and achieve our goals, and therefore we cannot confirm what spend will be allocated for advertising campaigns that have yet to be decided.
However, as per the recently published Budget, the Central Marketing budget will be reduced by £300,000 in the next financial year.
Transport for London’s advertising spend can be found in MQ on TfL’s advertising: https://www.london.gov.uk/questions/2020/1764. TfL’s future plans for 2021/22 are currently in discussion with GLA andDfTcolleagues and are not yet finalised.
The London Fire Brigade ran a one-off advertising campaign in 2018 to recruit women firefighters – total spend on this campaign was £250k. The LFC provisional annual budget for 2021-22 and the following 2 years is £15k per year.
LLDC advertising spend was £80k in 2016, £125k in 2017, £80k in 2018 and 2019 and £20k in 2020. The future LLDC budget is £50k in 2021-22, and a provisional budget of £65k is allocated to the subsequent 2 years.

Everyone In

Andrew Boff: What is the total government funding received by the GLA for this scheme, how has this funding been spent, and how many rough sleepers have benefited?

The Mayor: The GLA has secured over £41m from Government since the start of the pandemic for its COVID-19 rough sleeping response. In addition, over £2m of GLA funding has been diverted from other services for this purpose.
To 31 March 2021, the GLA has spent or has committed to spend around £41.1m on the COVID-19 rough sleeping response:
Accommodation and related services (eg hotels, food, security, cleaning, transport)
£26.53m
Support to rough sleepers in hotels and other emergency accommodation
£12.29m
Support for In For Good (including move-on and resettlement work in hotels, private rented sector, employment support, drug, alcohol and mental health support, immigration advice)
£2.28m
Total
£41.1m
At the peak of the first wave, there were 14 GLA-procured hotels with capacity for around 1,400 people. As at 8 March 2021, almost 2,300 rough sleepers have been provided with emergency accommodation in GLA-procured hotels, of whom over 900 have positively moved on and over 1,000 are currently accommodated (in nine hotels).

Electric push bikes (3)

Keith Prince: Have electric push bikes seen changes to type of injuries occurring compared to cycling?

The Mayor: Please see my response to question 2021/1356.

GLA Group Pensions

Tony Devenish: Can you provide a brief/layman’s analysis of the pensions across the GLA family: GLA, LFB, Met Police, TfL and any others and compare to other public sector pensions (LGPS, NHS, Whitehall civil service), with an executive summary of the highest rated in terms of generous provisions to the recipients and cost to the taxpayer?

The Mayor: I am unable to respond on behalf of the wider public sector, however, the attached table sets out the principal comparisons of the various pension schemes operating within the GLA Group. Note that some organisations have more than one scheme available to staff. All the organisations offer “defined benefit” schemes, i.e. pensioners have certainty over what they will receive from retirement and employers underwrite the cost of meeting that promise. There are two main types of scheme, funded, for instance the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), where money is paid by members and employers into a fund which is then managed to generate income to later pay the pensions, and unfunded, for instance the Firefighters scheme, where current employees’ and employers’ contributions are used directly to pay the pensions.
There is considerable variation in how these schemes operate, and “generosity” cannot easily be ranked. This depends on both individual salary history and point of view as to which is the most important out of annual contribution cost relative to benefits accrued each year, which measure of indexation applies before and after retirement, retirement age, whether the scheme is career average (CARE) or final salary based, lump sum and transfer flexibility, etc. I have set out the main features for such consideration in the table.
Column 3, employers’ contribution cost relative to median earnings is an objective measure of cost to the taxpayer. On this basis TfL’s LGPS section is currently the most expensive, although there are very few members, so the main TfL scheme is more relevant. The GLA, LLDC and OPDC’s LGPS arrangements are currently the least expensive. Note that these costs are due to both the rules of the different schemes, the demographics of the relevant workforce and in the case of the funded schemes, investment history and strategy.

The Mayor: MQ0250 (final).xlsx

Affordable artists’ workspaces

Susan Hall: How many affordable artists’ workspaces have been created in London as a result of a share of your £112m Strategic Investment Fund (SIF), injected in your Good Growth Fund?

The Mayor: Investing and stemming the loss of affordable workspace is key to retaining the creative workforce in the capital. Prior to COVID-19, 24 per cent of sites providing artists’ workspace were at risk of closure within 5 years. This position has likely worsened due to COVID-19, devastating small creative businesses and impacting on self-employed artists.
The Strategic Investment Fund has provided £1.16m investment in affordable creative workspaces. This includes support for Second Floor Studios & Arts bringing 85 new affordable artists’ studios to Deptford. These studios are within the Mayor’s Creative Enterprise Zone in Deptford and New Cross which will support and grow the creative sector in Lewisham.
The fund also supported Studio Voltaire in Clapham with a £500,000 grant which provides 7,900 sq. ft. of new affordable workspaces for over 75 artists.

Supporting Disabled People Impacted by Covid-19 into Work

Caroline Pidgeon: A recent report by Inclusion London on disabled people’s experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic in London highlighted the importance of supporting disabled Londoners in getting and keeping good jobs, with good pay and working conditions. What work are you doing to ensure disabled individuals are given more opportunities for high quality employment and how are you working to strengthen protections for disabled workers against discrimination and equipping employers with the knowledge that allows them to support and develop disabled workers in an inclusive work environment as we recover from the pandemic?

The Mayor: Deaf and disabled Londoners faced barriers to employment before the pandemic. A lack of flexible work opportunities, inaccessible recruitment, and not enough information for employers all contributed to disabled people not participating or progressing in the workplace. While the growth in remote working has helped some, overwhelmingly the economic crisis and lockdown restrictions have worsened disabled Londoners’ experiences of work.
My Good Work Standard encourages employers to support their disabled staff through inclusive recruitment, flexible working and disability leave policies, as well as gathering data and acting on disability pay gaps. My Employment Rights Hub features information about rights for disabled workers at work.
To build on this, I am working with Deaf and disabled Londoners to co-design the solutions that will be at the heart of London’s recovery and our work to create Good Work for Londoners. This month, Deputy Mayor Dr Debbie Weekes-Bernard co-hosted a meeting with Inclusion London and Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) to discuss how we can work together on the London Recovery Programme. The Programme’s ‘Good Work’ mission will improve the coordination of employment support and training to ensure better access for groups, such as disabled Londoners, who sometimes fall between the cracks. It will build on the Good Work Standard to mobilise employers to adopt good employment practices and increase workforce diversity.

London in the post-Brexit era

Len Duvall: Even though we have left the EU, what are your plans to maintain a lobby for London in a post Brexit era?

The Mayor: Brexit is a continuing process - there will be ongoing EU-UK consultations on many topics including the economy, trade, financial services, environment and climate change where it will be useful for London to maintain regular contact with the EU. London’s European Office is based in Brussels and whilst the function and staffing resource of the office has been reviewed, due to the UK’s third country status, our presence in Brussels will ensure we can continue to influence the EU post-Brexit, participate in European networks and maintain London’s profile and links with other major European cities.